John Kenneth Knaus

Background

John Kenneth Knaus was born on May 30, 1923 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, United States.

Education

After Army service during World War II, John Kenneth Knaus graduated from Stanford University, where he also received a master's degree in political science.

Career

In 1952 John Kenneth Knaus joined the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as operations officer. From 1956 until 1968, the CIA conducted an operation that trained Tibetan guerrillas in the mountains of Colorado, then airlifted them to Tibet, along with supplies and equipment, to form a resistance to the Chinese occupiers. Knaus became involved in 1958 when he was asked to be an instructor in the program.

Knaus’s first group of students were nine Tibetans, to whom he lectured on Chinese-Soviet relations. He then helped instruct Tibetans on how to educate their countrymen about the purpose of the program. Knaus notes that the CIA trainers knew little about Tibet, and only one had been there. They didn’t understand that Buddhism was the foundation of their nationalism and not merely a religion. The maps they used for the first drops were outdated, having been drawn by a 1904 British expedition.

The CIA also had an unrealistic perception of the Tibetans as guerrillas. They were herders who moved with their animals and families, who would have been defenseless if the men left them to form small bands as resistance fighters. The Chinese, on the other hand, were veterans of Korea, and with their planes, tanks, and cavalry, they easily eliminated the Tibetan resistance. In 1959, Allen Dulles, director of the CIA, admitted to the National Security Council that the Chinese Communists had badly beaten the Tibetans.

His last post before retiring was CIA officer in residence at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. In retirement he was a research associate at Harvard's Fairbank Center for East Asian Research (now the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies).

Achievements

• John Kenneth Knaus was best known for his service as a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer for forty three years and his involvement into a program of support for Tibetan fighters. He wrote two books based on his Tibetan experience, which received high praise from critics.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Beyond Shangri-La: America and Tibet's Move into the Twenty-First Century

    (Beyond Shangri-La chronicles relations between the Tibeta...)

    2012
  • Orphans Of The Cold War: The United States, China, And The Tragedy Of Modern Tibet

    (This book chronicles the efforts of Tibetan insurgents an...)

    1999

Connections

John Kenneth was married to Lois Ann Lehman Knaus. They had three children.

Spouse:

Lois Ann Lehman Knaus

Daughter:

Maggie Knaus

Daughter:

Holly Knaus

Son:

John Kenneth Knaus Jr.

References

• Contemporary Authors
  2000